


Pear

by BananaStrings



Category: Agatha Christie's Poirot (TV)
Genre: Episode: s09e02 Sad Cypress, First Time, Gentleness, Intimacy, London, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:08:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25887859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BananaStrings/pseuds/BananaStrings
Summary: Dr. Peter Lord and Hercule Poirot decide to enrich what had been an enticing but sparse acquaintance.
Relationships: Dr. Peter Lord/Hercule Poirot
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	Pear

"Ah, you are accepting my invitation right away," Poirot replied to his caller.

It had only been a month since they had parted at Hunterbury, and Poirot had offered Dr. Lord a rematch of their chess game at his apartments in London.

"Just as I prefer it," Poirot continued, "and shall I set a place for Miss Carlisle?"

"No, I will be entirely alone."

"Ah, and Miss Carlisle is well?"

"Yes," Dr. Lord assured, "engaged this week to my apprentice, in fact, who will be handling my patients while I’m in London."

"Oh, then you will stay with me, of course. I will be home for two weeks. You are welcome at once."

"Thank you, Poirot."

"Thank you, Doctor."

The gratitude was certainly mutual. Hercule reseated the receiver in its cradle and lifted the whole of the black resin phone to its usual position, parallel to the edges of the desk and five inches to the right of the blotter. He draped the braided cord in an elegant loop behind the phone, returned to its proper place of rest, feeling pleased that the doctor’s visit felt properly placed as well.

He expected the visit to bestow a restful symmetry most desirable at this time. He'd just returned from a case with a taxing swell of personal emotion he’d had to maintain his head above. Doctor Lord had a natural buoyancy of spirit that was most welcome now and likely would not be too difficult to return to him.

Both sought, Poirot believed, the same thing—sympathy, in a way he felt was somewhat childish, as a man in his fifties contemplating his lack of true companionship like some youthful longing still. He knew the good doctor would not chide him for it, as a man in his forties feeling a similar lack and likely seeking similar sympathy.

It was not that Poirot was feeling unloved. His life had been rich with love, but never that particular experience of having a lover with whom he could share that which is most private, that which he’d had to hold back, protect through the years of waiting to deliver it into the hands of he whom waited to receive it. The holding of this gift had become heavier over time, and the ache felt keen this last month.

The sacrifice had always felt right. Better to keep from his dear Hastings the nature of his longings by not pursuing them with the guileless Captain so close in his life. He’d had no right to burden his friend with that knowledge. These past years, however, Hastings was protected from any troublesome involvement by the whole breadth of the Atlantic, having followed a marriage to the Americas with all its difficulties and yet bravely held on. Poirot smiled to himself. Ah, his friend still inspired after all these years and all this distance.

They broke the evening silence that night, after Dr. Lord had arrived from the train, with the familiar topic of that first chess game that Poirot still recalled fondly these two years past. He liked the way that Dr. Lord smiled at his praise, an almost childlike expression in an experienced and tempered doctor’s countenance.

"It was creative, imaginative," Poirot effused.

"Oh, I’m nothing like that," Peter countered, still smiling.

"You were at first."

"I was excited," Peter effaced. "I wanted to impress you."

"You did!" Hercule agreed. "And then…"

"And then I lost."

"But only just so. If you had continued the way you began, perhaps not next time."

"I thought I’d better go back to a more traditional style."

"Yes, your patients benefit greatly from you steadiness, Doctor, I think. I must admit I have great admiration for your orderliness. Your office was so very soothing to enter."

"Not everyone takes kindly to being steadied and soothed."

"No, I admit I was surprised to hear Elinor had become engaged so quickly."

Dr. Lord stood and turned away, obviously hesitant to speak ill of her.

"And why not? She’d been through it. Why not reach for a bit of happiness on the other side? She’s far bolder than I’ve ever been."

He stiffened as though he wished he’d said nothing at all. Poirot stood as well, bringing Dr. Lord his tea cup, which he took gratefully, sipping to soothe his nerves.

"I’m sorry," Poirot said quietly, "that I pushed you toward something which did not suit you."

Peter’s startled expression startled Poirot for a moment, who quickly filed the discrepancy away, before it was hidden again in another sip.

"It was unforgivably arrogant of me to believe you could not guide yourself in matters of the heart," Poirot continued, "especially as I know you have always done so successfully."

"Me?" Lord asked with startlement. "I’ve never even…been anything less than sensible."

"Yes, sensible or maybe more accurately sensitive. We are alike in that way," Poirot said and allowed a warmth to enter his expression. "You will treat your patients with dignity, even if it is not, as you say, by the books. Do you not prescribe that placebo to bring peace to a patient’s mind even if they cannot be helped by medicine?"

"Yes."

"And there are times in my profession in which I am able to show mercy, even if that mercy does not fit the letter of the law. Justice like healing is a softer thing than we often wish to believe."

Dr. Lord turned away. "If you are a good man, perhaps you can trust your judgment in such things."

"Are you not a good enough man to trust with the most vulnerable among us in our most dire hours of need? You have appeared so to me. Am I wrong?"

"If you are, I am not the one to challenge you," Peter said with a tentative smile.

"You are unsettled now," Poirot said with lightening cheerfulness, as he stepped away with a smile, "but London has many delights to remind a man that this world is indeed a good world to be settled into, and we shall find one to tempt you. Delicious food, pleasant music, fine art, friendly company, freedom to let your mind wander into some imaginings."

Dr. lord laughed. "You just want a better opponent to face you across the chess board."

"I will look forward to your inspiration."

Peter shook his head with bemusement.

"Good night, Dr. Lord."

"Good night, Poirot."

At the ballet, Poirot watched Peter watching the dance. Studying intently, the doctor's acute mind must be pulling out the patterns of the dance and the music and the costumes and the story, finding each detail and fitting it all into the wider context. It made Poirot wish he knew the dancers and could introduce Dr. Lord to them after the show for surely they would enjoy such a focused attention.

The dancers were masterful and worthy of praise, lithe and sharp and smooth. They seemed to float between earth and heaven. By intermission Dr. Lord seemed to be verging on overwhelm.

"It’s so different to my daily life," Peter commented. "I see bodies that have broken down every day, in distress. I forget, even as I watch so many heal so miraculously, that the body is as much strength as weakness."

It revealed to Hercule that all Lord’s attention had not been on the so obvious beauty of the dance but on trying to diagnose that which was not ill.

"Perhaps," Poirot said delicately placing a hand on Dr. Lord’s forearm, "you can share in that strength tonight. Find one dancer who is strongest and focus on that one."

Peter was listening intently, needing a way out of the trap of his mind, but Poirot’s words only seemed to trouble him further.

"I do not call you weak, Doctor. Put that thought from your mind."

"I’m sorry, friend, you were right last night, when you called me unsettled."

Poirot had with good intentions tried to revive that old look of excitement, which Dr. Lord had shown upon first meeting him, by steering him toward such a forceful woman as Elinor Carlisle. However, that week last month replayed now in his mind differently than his first assumptions. The renewed spark of Dr. Lord’s excitement may not have been owed to Miss Carlisle but to the work of freeing her from unjust imprisonment—to Poirot’s work again, as in the chess game.

Only a quarter hour into the second act, Poirot noticed Peter’s hands clutched tensely around the program resting on his knee. Poirot reached for that program and pulled it gently from his grasp, squeezing his hand briefly and feeling an answering squeeze as he withdrew. He leaned close enough that a breath of whisper could be heard.

"Tell to me, have you found the strongest?"

After a pause of contemplation, Peter nodded.

"Yes?"

He turned his face closer and replied in a murmur.

"The principle man’s ankles. They are at once so flexible and so stable."

"Bon."

Peter relaxed little by little for the rest of the performance, wiping a tear away at the end which Poirot did not comment upon. They returned to Hercule’s home, to a calming tisane and quiet atmosphere. Peter was silent and Poirot sipped in meditative mood, until he noticed a self-deprecating smile preceding a stifled laugh. Poirot made his expression welcoming of sharing the humor.

"I tried to focus," Dr. Lord admitted, "but I kept thinking, they all looked so thin. I don’t think it was the doctor in me however, not exactly. I have always thought that the comfortable figure looks more healthy. It’s not in fashion to think that way these days, I know, but…" he smiled again, "my mentor was a comfortable man and a good man. My admiration of him has colored how I see the world."

It was an intimate admission from such a careful person. He seemed to know it, though he didn’t rise to turn his back, only kept his eyes on his tea cup this time.

"Poirot himself is not immune to the subjective mind," Hercule responded. "Instantly I liked you, when I saw the workspace you had created. I had to force myself to think of you as a murder suspect one month ago, and it was not so easily done."

"I suppose I made it easier by lying to you."

"No," Poirot said with gentle certainty, "we all lie."

"To disastrous effect," Peter said morosely.

"Not always," Poirot comforted as he rose.

"Moderation in all things?" Peter asked, finally looking up.

Poirot smiled at the query and bid him a good night.

That week bore out the phrase. Poirot was moderate even in immoderation. He played days like songs, rising and falling and circling back into themes that evolved and devolved. Peter felt the intimacy he had offered that night after the ballet returned to him tenfold. Poirot led him ever deeper into his personal life, showing him that with which he found harmony; from the succulent beef of a French restaurant, to the softly rendered paintings of the countryside, to the chiming bells of a church concert, to the honest curiosity of his author friend, Mrs. Oliver.

None of it was meant to impress him nor augment Poirot’s public persona. Peter wasn’t being helped to settle into the delights of London as it were, so much as he was being helped to settle into the delights of Hercule’s home. It was a hard earned home at that, one he’d had to forge himself after fleeing the Belgian motherland he was raised to. Lord realized that the city was not more than the people. Each one with their own steps that created a pattern, a life, a dance. After another few days following Poirot’s rhythms and finding his own feet, Peter thought he had learned how Hercule moved through life well enough to challenge him again over the chess board.

But, that evening, only a couple of days from Dr. Lord’s departure, Poirot did not move at all like he had anticipated, and all his careful plans were scrapped after only a handful of turns. Poirot made the boldest play Peter had ever seen, a straight ahead advancement. With more confidence than craft, he shot his king forward like an arrow toward Dr. Lord’s. He had no choice but to part the gates to release his own defenders, but for all his counters, the win was Hercule’s. And yet, as Peter looked up from the board, he felt a flush of triumph.

"Almost had you," he announced with a grin.

Poirot was bright-eyed as well.

"You have captured most of my forces. Even if I have the claim of victory, your kingdom will not bend to my will, I think."

Peter looked back down at the board, at the way the pearwood king stood tall and proud and surrounded by Peter’s forces. It was not an accident. Poirot had walked right into that keep. But, to what purpose, Lord didn’t know. His own cherrywood king lay on its side, yet he still did not feel vanquished. Two kings in one keep. Oh, Poirot had risked all his forces, all his advantage to meet him there, vulnerable and alone and brave. Dr. Lord swallowed hard, feeling his heart thump his breastbone.

"I think," Peter stated softly, "that in the first game we played together I was following your lead. I was creative because you were so."

"Yes, however, it is very rare indeed," Poirot replied, "that a man is bold enough to respond in kind to me."

For all Elinor’s boldness, Peter had never responded in kind to her. The choice had been his, and he had made it. Poirot rose and walked into his hallway, stepping into his bedroom doorway and out of sight, but with door left open and no goodnight bade. Peter followed.

Stepping through the doorway, he was relieved to find that like the rest of the house Poirot’s bed chamber was a sanctuary of symmetry and tidiness. Poirot was standing at his open wardrobe with his back to the door, hanging his dinner jacket on a wooden hanger and replacing it inside. He reached in to pull out another hanger and held it out slowly toward Peter.

When he took it, Poirot communicated his guidance clearly with a flick of his eyes toward Peter’s own jacket. Peter set the hanger down on the bed beside him, stripped himself of his jacket and hung it neatly, then placed the whole in Poirot’s outstretched hand. Into the wardrobe it went, to hang beside Hercule’s own clothing. This ritual was repeated with each item of clothing, Poirot smoothing each flat on their hangers before slotting them gracefully into the wardrobe. The shoes coming off and being neatly stored in the middle of the disrobing.

When Poirot turned back around, the effect was knee-weakening. No more the restraint of the gentlemanly service but the plainness of animal attraction. He was thick and sturdy looking. And his erection full and definite. There was deep scarring wrapped around his left thigh from combat, but Peter had anticipated it from his truncated gait.

He eyed Dr. Lord with keen gaze, surely seeing, even through the curls of brown hair that scattered over him, the gooseflesh that he could feel pebbling his fair skin and the tremble he couldn’t stop in limbs that appeared slender in comparison to Poirot's own. He turned away again, as Dr. Lord attempted to compose himself, and prepared the bed by pulling down the duvet and rearranging the pillows. Poirot swept a hand over the sheets in clear invitation, and Peter walked around to the far side and climbed atop the bed.

The sheets were smooth and stretched tight and unwrinkled beneath him. He laid back upon the white pillows, the very same Hercule used every night, and felt the allowance as moving as a kiss would have been. Anticipation made him gasp, as Poirot moved to lie beside him. A single index finger touched his cheek and directed his face to turn and then a soft kiss found his mouth. He nearly couldn’t return it for breathing so hard, didn’t mean he liked it any less.

Poirot drew back to prompt him to open his eyes, and seeing his face helped to calm Lord somewhat. Hercule nodded at him and reassured:

"I will not damage or disarray you."

Peter hadn’t been thinking down those lines at all, had simply been appreciating getting something he wanted. But, he understood the promise, as Poirot moved to pull pillows down, urging up Peter’s hips to elevate them. He hadn’t considered it, the old tomes he’d read at university about how to check for the signs of buggery.

The flash of panic was piercing—not for the act but for its discovery. As a physician of two decades, there was nothing about sexual congress itself that could alarm him anymore. Poirot set a bottle of clear oil on the bedside table from the drawer. He unstoppered it, allowed the friendly scent of almonds to fill the air. Good for the skin Peter’s mind reminded. Perhaps Poirot knew how to do this. Perhaps he knew how to get away with it.

He groaned in spite of himself, as he watched Poirot pour the oil down the tip of his own erection in a gleaming stream; his fastidious hands swiping careful fingers to coat himself evenly. Peter bit down to stop more sounds, as Poirot moved between his legs. The position was well chosen, for control, for caution. They could watch one another, communicate clearly. Poirot held the bottle as he knelt there, waiting for his clear communication.

Feeling that same unexpected surge of triumph warming his skin, Peter parted his knees further, reveling in the catch of breath that Poirot could not hide. There was no fumbling, no lust-dumb clumsiness, no ravishing compulsion. Hercule was as ever himself, precise and decisive and…sensitive. Peter trusted his promise not to damage or disarray. He closed his eyes not from fear of the experience but from the desire to savor it. It took some time, but the time it took was a pleasure, and by the time more was offered, more was wanted.

Poirot’s hands held his hips still and properly angled for the short steady thrusts he maintained. Having no worries for his own safety or handling, Dr. Lord’s mind opened up to a quick worry that Poirot may not be gaining any enjoyment for himself from the exercise of so much restraint. To check for any sign of pain on his friend’s part, Peter opened his eyes to the dim warm light of the amber glass lamp.

Poirot was as upright and proud as that pearwood king, only his head bowed to watch their union so as to keep each movement even with the next. There was no sign of distress, only of healthy exertion, a slight sheen to the nearly bare top of his head. Peter became aware that it was not only his own panting he had been hearing in the room. He quieted himself to listen, but at once Poirot heard the change in breathing and looked up, his eyes dark and shining with passion. Peter’s body went tight with awareness of the great strength it took for a man to master himself in the way his friend did.

Poirot stilled in the clutch of his body to stare back at him. Dr. Lord had always been told that his stark gray eyes were cold and inscrutable, but as he held Poirot’s gaze his bronze eyes only warmed in recognition. Peter relaxed in the understanding that they were a good match. Closing his eyes again, he flattened palms on the mattress and slid them forward till the very tips of his fingers touched Poirot’s knees. He brushed his fingertips up his thighs, surprised by how delightfully soft the fine black hairs were there. This was his first chance to initiate a caress, and he found the sweep of arousal through him tightening all his muscles back up, making his erection feel nearly too full.

Clearly now he saw Poirot’s wisdom in giving him but one gentle kiss before joining with him in this manner. He would have been overly tense with anticipation and need had they exchanged more caresses beforehand. Clear also was the fact that Poirot had wanted this particular act more than any other. It was meaningful to him. There was weight to this union, not in its archaic criminality but in its evocation of a wedding night, a sanctified act to a Catholic like Poirot—and a singular one.

In the sacred silence Poirot had created in the room, Peter heard only the muffled, regular shifting of the heavy bed as Hercule resumed his patient and careful thrusting. The sound was so peaceful like water lapping at the shore. He stretched his arms out on the smooth sheets like he was a youth again, floating in a summer lake. Sun-warmed water touched him in every intimate place. The wet, warm, sleek feeling of intercourse flowed through him.

He let his already widely splayed knees drop wider at his sides. He heard Poirot’s breath stutter. Peter allowed himself to play fully that cherrywood king and his formal rite of surrender. Tipping back his chin, he showed his throat.

"Oh," Poirot breathed softly.

"I have you," Peter whispered with a smile.


End file.
